Yvette Cooper

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Yvette Cooper
Official portrait, 2019
Shadow Home Secretary
Assumed office
29 November 2021
LeaderKeir Starmer
Preceded byNick Thomas-Symonds
In office
20 January 2011 – 12 September 2015
Leader
Preceded byEd Balls
Succeeded byAndy Burnham
Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee
In office
19 October 2016 – 1 December 2021
Preceded byTim Loughton (acting)
Succeeded byTim Loughton (acting)
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
In office
5 June 2009 – 11 May 2010
Prime MinisterGordon Brown
Preceded byJames Purnell
Succeeded byIain Duncan Smith
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
In office
24 January 2008 – 5 June 2009
Prime MinisterGordon Brown
Preceded byAndy Burnham
Succeeded byLiam Byrne
Shadow portfolios
2010–2013
Shadow Foreign Secretary
In office
8 October 2010 – 20 January 2011
LeaderEd Miliband
Preceded byDavid Miliband
Succeeded byDouglas Alexander
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
In office
11 May 2010 – 8 October 2010
LeaderHarriet Harman (acting)
Ed Miliband
Preceded byTheresa May
Succeeded byDouglas Alexander
Ministerial offices
1999–2008
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health
In office
11 October 1999 – 29 May 2002
Prime MinisterTony Blair
Preceded byTessa Jowell
Succeeded byDavid Lammy
Pontefract and Castleford (1997–2010)
Assumed office
1 May 1997
Preceded byGeoffrey Lofthouse
Majority1,276 (2.6%)
Personal details
Born (1969-03-20) 20 March 1969 (age 55)
Inverness, Scotland
NationalityBritish
Political partyLabour
Spouse
MSc)
Signature
WebsiteOfficial website

Yvette Cooper (born 20 March 1969) is a British politician serving as

Pontefract and Castleford, since 1997
.

First elected to Parliament at the

Shadow Foreign Secretary from 2010 to 2011. In 2011, her husband Ed Balls was promoted to Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer; Cooper replaced Balls as Shadow Home Secretary and served until Labour lost the 2015 general election
.

On 13 May 2015, Cooper announced she would run to be

Article 50 to delay Brexit. She became Shadow Home Secretary again in Keir Starmer’s November 2021 reshuffle
.

Early life and education

Yvette Cooper was born on 20 March 1969 in Inverness, Scotland. Her father is Tony Cooper, former General Secretary of the Prospect trade union, a former non-executive director of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority and a former Chairman of the British Nuclear Industry Forum.[4] He was also a government adviser on the Energy Advisory Panel.[5] Her mother, June, was a maths teacher.[6]

She was educated at

MSc in Economics at the London School of Economics.[8]

Early career

Cooper began her career as an economic policy researcher for

Shadow Chancellor John Smith in 1990 before working in Arkansas for Bill Clinton, nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States, in 1992. Later that year, she became a policy advisor to then Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Harriet Harman.[7]

At the age of 24, Cooper developed

chronic fatigue syndrome, which took her a year to recover from.[6] In 1994 she moved to become a research associate at the Centre for Economic Performance. In 1995, she became the chief economics correspondent of The Independent, remaining with the newspaper until her election to the House of Commons in 1997.[7]

Parliamentary career

Cooper was selected as the

Pontefract and Castleford at the 1997 general election. She was elected as MP for Pontefract and Castleford with 75.7% of the vote and a majority of 25,725.[9] Cooper made her maiden speech in the Commons on 2 July 1997, speaking about her constituency's struggle with unemployment.[10]
She served for two years on the Education and Employment Select Committee.

Blair and Brown government: 1999–2010

In 1999, she was promoted as

At the 2001 general election, Cooper was re-elected as MP for Pontefract and Castleford with a decreased vote share of 69.7% and a decreased majority of 16,378.[13]

In 2003, she became Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Regeneration in the

Department for Communities and Local Government from 2006.[15]

Cooper was again re-elected at the 2005 general election with a decreased vote share of 63.7% and a decreased majority of 15,246.[16]

After Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, Cooper was invited to attend cabinet meetings as Housing Minister. Shortly after taking the job, she was required to introduce the Home Information Pack (HIPs) scheme. According to Conservative columnist Matthew Parris, Cooper conceived HIPs, but avoided direct criticism for its problems because of her connection with Brown.[17] In July 2007, Cooper announced in the House of Commons that "unless we act now, by 2026 first-time buyers will find average house prices are ten times their salary. That could lead to real social inequality and injustice. Every part of the country needs more affordable homes – in the North and the South, in urban and rural communities".[18]

Cooper as Minister for Housing in 2007

In 2008, Cooper became the first woman to serve as Chief Secretary to the Treasury where she was involved with taking Northern Rock into public ownership. As her husband, Ed Balls, was already a cabinet minister, her promotion meant that the two became the first married couple ever to sit in the cabinet together.[19]

In 2009, Cooper was appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and took over leading on the Welfare Reform Act 2009 which included measures to extend the use of benefit sanctions to force unemployed people to seek work.[20] Many campaigners – including the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) – urged Cooper to rethink Labour's approach, arguing instead that increasing support for job seekers was vital to eradicating child poverty.[21][22]

Allegations over expenses

In May 2009, the

Daily Telegraph reported that Cooper had changed the designation of her second home twice in two years. Following a referral to the parliamentary standards watchdog, Cooper and her husband Ed Balls were exonerated by John Lyon, the Standards Commissioner. He said they had paid capital gains tax on their homes and were not motivated by profit.[23] Cooper and Balls bought a four-bedroom house in Stoke Newington, North London, and registered this as their second home (rather than their home in Castleford, West Yorkshire); this qualified them for up to £44,000 a year to subsidise a reported £438,000 mortgage under the Commons Additional Costs Allowance, of which they claimed £24,400.[24] An investigation in MPs' expenses by Sir Thomas Legg found that Cooper and her husband had both received overpayments of £1,363 in relation to their mortgage. He ordered them to repay the money.[25]

Miliband Shadow Cabinet: 2010–2015

Prior to the 2010 general election, Cooper's constituency of Pontefract and Castleford was abolished, and replaced with Normanton, Pontefract, and Castleford. At the election, Cooper was elected as MP for Normanton, Pontefract, and Castleford with 48.1% of the vote and a majority of 10,979.[26] After Labour's defeat at the general election, Cooper and her husband Ed Balls were both mentioned in the press as a potential leadership candidates when Gordon Brown resigned as Leader of the Labour Party.

Before Balls announced his candidacy, he offered to stand aside if Cooper wanted to stand, but Cooper declined for the sake of their children, stating that it would not be the right time for her.

Shadow Foreign Secretary
.

When

Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities from October 2010 to October 2013.[15]

Shadow Home Secretary: 2011–2015

On 20 January 2011, Cooper took the position of Shadow Home Secretary amidst a shadow cabinet reshuffle.[31] In this position, Cooper shadowed Theresa May at the Home Office. She labelled the government's vans displaying posters urging illegal immigrants to go home a "divisive gimmick" in October 2013.[32]

In February 2013, she was assessed as one of the 100 most powerful women in the United Kingdom by Woman's Hour on BBC Radio 4, although not in the top 20.[33]

In 2013, she proposed the appointment of a national commissioner for domestic and sexual violence.[34] She spoke at the Labour Party Conference in 2014 about eastern Europeans who were mistreated by employers of migrant labour.[35]

Cooper was strongly critical of the cuts to child tax credit announced by George Osborne in the July 2015 Budget; she authored the following statement in the New Statesman:

And remember

food banks to put a hot meal on the table, as too many families now do.[36]

2015 Labour leadership election

Cooper speaking at the 2016 Labour Party Conference

At the 2015 general election, Cooper was re-elected as MP for Normanton, Pontefract, and Castleford with an increased vote share of 54.9% and an increased majority of 15,428.[37][38] After the election and Ed Miliband's resignation, she was nominated as one of four candidates for the Labour leadership. Cooper was nominated by 59 MPs, 12 MEPs, 109 CLPs, two affiliated trade unions and one socialist society.[39][40][41] The Guardian newspaper endorsed Cooper as the "best placed" to offer a strong vision and unite the party while the New Statesman's endorsement praised her experience.[42][43] Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly endorsed Cooper as his first choice for leader, as did former Home Secretary Alan Johnson.[44][45]

During the campaign, Cooper supported reintroducing the 50p

income tax rate and creating more high-skilled manufacturing jobs. She proposed the introduction of a living wage for social care workers and the construction of 300,000 houses every year. Cooper disagreed that Labour spent too much whilst in government.[46]

Backbencher: 2015–2021

Yvette Cooper campaigning with Tracy Brabin in Pontefract in 2021

Following the 2015 Labour Party leadership election, Cooper returned to the back benches, after nearly 17 years on the front bench.

European refugee crisis, Cooper was appointed chair of Labour's refugee taskforce, working with local authorities, community groups and trade unions to develop a sustainable and humanitarian response to the crisis.[48][49] She spoke about the issue at Labour's annual conference in 2016.[50]

She supported Owen Smith against Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 leadership election.[51]

After a vote of MPs on 19 October 2016, Cooper was elected chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee, gaining more votes than fellow candidates, Caroline Flint, Chuka Umunna and Paul Flynn.[3] As chair, Cooper launched a national inquiry into public views on immigration[52] and, after an emergency inquiry into the Dubs scheme for child refugees, criticised the government's decision to end the programme in February 2017.[53][54]

At the snap 2017 general election, Cooper was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 59.5% and a decreased majority of 14,499.[55][56]

Cooper was critical of the May government's infrastructure plans' focus on big cities, and was formerly the chair of Labour Towns, a group of Labour MPs, councillors and mayors of towns seeking to promote investment in them – publishing a town manifesto in 2019.[57][58]

She is a member of Labour Friends of Israel.[59]

She was again re-elected at the 2019 general election, with a decreased vote share of 37.9% and a decreased majority of 1,276.[60]

Brexit

During the Brexit process, Cooper consistently fought against a no-deal Brexit, tabling one of the main amendments in January 2019; others to table amendments were Caroline Spelman, Graham Brady, Rachel Reeves, Dominic Grieve and Ian Blackford.[61]

In April, Cooper tabled a

private members' bill, again with the intended effect of preventing a "no-deal" Brexit.[62]
The Bill was voted to be discussed as an important bill using processes often used for issues of national security. MPs voted 312 to 311 in favour of allowing her bill to be fast-tracked, and it was made law on 8 April 2019.

Starmer Shadow Cabinet: 2021–present

Cooper was reappointed as Shadow Home Secretary on 29 November 2021 by Keir Starmer, replacing Nick Thomas-Symonds in a shadow cabinet reshuffle.

Following allegations that Home Secretary Suella Braverman had breached the ministerial code by sending secure information with her private email, Cooper asked for possible security implications to be investigated. She wrote to Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case "I am urging you and the Home Office to now urgently undertake such an investigation [into possible security breaches] as the public has a right to know that there are proper secure information procedures in place to cover the person who has been given charge of our national security."[63][64] Cooper also said that it raised doubts about the Prime Minister's judgement. She also added that people need to be able to trust the Home Secretary with highly sensitive information and national security.[65] Cooper says that the incumbent Conservative Party lack ethics and adequate standards.[66]

Personal life

Cooper married Ed Balls on 10 January 1998[67] in Eastbourne. Her husband was Economic Secretary to the Treasury in the Tony Blair government and Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families under Gordon Brown, then in opposition was Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer and a candidate in the 2010 Labour Party leadership election. The couple have two daughters and one son.[68]

Cooper has published two books, entitled She Speaks: The Power of Women's Voices and She Speaks: Women's Speeches That Changed the World, from Pankhurst to Greta, released in November 2019 and October 2020 respectively.[69][70]

References

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  31. from the original on 9 July 2019. Retrieved 9 July 2019.
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  37. ^ Cite error: The named reference electoralcalculus3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  38. ^ Cite error: The named reference 2015 result3 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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  58. (PDF). online: Labour Towns.
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  66. ^ Pippa Crerar and Jamie Grierson (8 November 2022). "'No one is unsackable': Williamson under growing pressure over bullying accusations". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 September 2023.
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External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament
for
Pontefract and Castleford
19972010
Constituency abolished
New constituency Member of Parliament
for
Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford
2010
–present
Incumbent
Political offices
Preceded by
Minister of State for Housing and Planning

2005–2008
Succeeded by
Preceded by Chief Secretary to the Treasury
2008–2009
Succeeded by
Preceded by Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
2009–2010
Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
2010
Succeeded by
Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities

2010–2013
Succeeded by
Preceded by
Shadow Foreign Secretary

2010–2011
Succeeded by
Preceded by Shadow Home Secretary
2011–2015
Succeeded by